when i look at you
by fabuleux
Summary: Broken girl, broken thoughts, broken state of mind. The nightmares haunt her every night, and she cannot take it much longer. Then there's the sanctuary that comes when she falls asleep, and the insanity that follows it. Her home is being threatened. And Josie must save her home.


_Josie was running as soon as her feet hit the ground. Running from nothing, and running from everything. Running from the terrible evil that was nipping at her heels and threatening to rip her apart limb by limb._

_Her breaths came in shallow, uneven pants and there was blood and tears running down her pale cheeks. She needed to be free from the darkness and evil that was kept inside this innocent park._

_She heard screams, screams that belonged to her best friends. And a yell that belonged to him. He, who saved her life, was momentarily going to lose his if she didn't get to him in time._

_As the girl approached her family, the ground began to tremble and split, and then there was that dark, abyss that never ended. And they were on the other side. Maybe with her years of gymnastics training she could make it, and Josie didn't have time to hesitate. Without a second thought, she was hurtling across that bottomless pit, the other side coming to her fast. And then she was falling. Falling away from him, falling into emptiness and nothingness and terrible sadness. Falling._

The girl woke, a cry trapped in her throat, cold sweat beaded on her forehead and tears frozen on her cheeks. The nightmares had come once again.

Sitting on the small bedside table next to her bed was a clock, numbers flashing in green. Josie leaned over the side of her bed, which was her safety and her insanity, to examine the time. It was a little after 9:40, and the blaring alarm was due to go off any second. With a shaking, silver chipped nail-polished finger she flipped the switch that turned the alarm off and settled back into the bed, pulling the blanket around her, yet the coldness inside her soul would not escape.

A sigh fell from her pink lips as Josie swung her legs out from under the warmth of a blanket and onto cold hardwood floor. With a small push of her arms, she was standing and her feet carried her into the small bathroom attached to her bedroom. There was no sign of any human inhabiting the room due to how freakishly neat the girl kept it. There was no trash settling on the floor, no dust living on the ceiling fan, no dirty clothes scattered on the floor. It wasn't a large room, nor was it small. In the precise middle of the third wall (Josie had measured it.) sat a queen-sized bed, with a clean white comforter that was currently wrinkled from the thrashing about endured by the terrible dream. That had terrorized the teen not moments ago. Next to the bed was a small table, which on it rested a black alarm clock, a glass of water, a neat pile of books, and an iPhone.

The bathroom was as neat as the rest of the room, and had the counters scrubbed down and the makeup and brushes organized by size, color, and use. The hot tools that Josie used sat in a rack, where they belonged. Cleaning was Josie's way of thinking.

Peering in the mirror back at Josie was a stranger that also looked incredibly familiar to her. She was tall, and her thighs didn't touch. The girl had long brown waves that gradually faded to a light blonde color as the curls reached her hips, and hazel eyes. On her pale cheeks lay coal tear tracks, evidence that she had forgotten to take off the eye makeup she wore before slipping into slumber. Her pink lips were slightly parted, and there was a faint white scar above her lip from when she had slipped as a child. Josie had the same scar. But she remembered herself as being happy and full of light that could illuminate even the darkest rooms. But there was no light in this girl. She was sad. Her hazel eyes were dull, arms bruised, and a thin sheen of cold sweat sat on her forehead. The terrible things she had seen and thoughts she had thought had put out this girl's candle flame.

Josie forced the corners of her mouth to turn up in a false smile, and the stranger in the mirror mimicked her.

_You will smile, and it will look believable. You will act as if everything is okay, even though the walls that keep you contained have shattered. You will act fine, even though you are not._

She repeated this inside her head multiple times whilst pulling a brush through her long hair, getting all the small tangles out. She applied eyeliner and mascara to her eyes, and pinched her cheeks slightly to give he a natural blush. _Get dressed. You're fine, Jo, you're fine._

After dressing her thin and shaking body in a pair of skinny jeans and a black-cropped top, Josie slipped her feet into sandals. It was Florida in July, yet she never was hot in jeans. Today she was going to the place that brought back warm, happy memories from when she was only small back to her, the place that people knew as the Happiest Place on Earth: Disney World. Her mother took her there every week as a little girl, and it was the happiest she could ever be when she was laughing as she rode the rides that were made for smaller kids.

Grabbing the par of sunglasses that lay on the desk by the door and the car keys, Josie was gone.

**xXx**

After many rides on the teacups, she started to get the feeling that someone was watching her. The hairs that sat on the back of her neck stood straight, and a chill swam up her spine, despite the ninety-degree weather.

Josie's hazel eyes wandered, and they landed on the large, elegant Cinderella castle that was to the right of her. Up in the top window of one of the towers, a curtain fluttered. There was someone there, someone watching her. And she did not like it one bit.

**Review? Xoxo, Leah Kay.**


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